


paper and ink

by Jacqueline Albright-Beckett (xaandria)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Getting Together, Gift Fic, M/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 22:00:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1202119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xaandria/pseuds/Jacqueline%20Albright-Beckett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Sometimes Cas’s fingers would be stained, and Dean would wonder if he had spilt across a poem or a collection of words or nothing at all. Sometimes, taking out the garbage, the outline of an empty glass inkwell would press against the plastic and Dean would wonder what thousands of words and letters and sigils had emerged from the bottle, drop by drop.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dean gives Cas the gift of words, but words aren't something that can define their bond at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	paper and ink

**Author's Note:**

  * For [disreputabledog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/disreputabledog/gifts).



> _thank you to anoblecompanion for the speedy!beta_

Of all the simple and more complicated pleasures Dean thought Cas would find comfort in, he hadn’t been expecting writing to be one of them.

Not writing in a diary, or writing a story; just the simple act of writing, of dragging the nib of a pen across paper. The same short poem, over and over, in different calligraphic hands. The alphabet. A complex grid of Enochian sigils that, he said, meant nothing.

When Cas had gone through two dozen rollerball pens, Dean surprised him with a fountain pen. Nothing fancy, just a fourteen-dollar blue and silver number from the office supply store that took ink cartridges, but Cas had been thrilled in his quiet way, turning it over and over in his hands before padding barefoot to his room where he kept his paper.

Paper became something Dean paid more and more attention to, noticing stationery shops during their excursions, and finally he broke down and ducked into one briefly.

He wondered why he was spending fifty dollars on paper.

He wondered why he’d spent so long trying to decide between two nearly identical monogrammed C’s.

He wondered if Cas would even care; he seemed content enough with his sheaves of notebook paper.

At the light that ignited behind Cas’s eyes when they took in the gold of the monogram, or the way Cas’s fingers shook ever so slightly as he rubbed them across the creamy, smooth ecru of the paper, Dean stopped wondering. Cas didn’t say anything aside from a quiet, earnest “thank you.” Dean had not responded with words at all, merely clapped a hand on Cas’s shoulder in silence before shuffling away.

Pens with reservoirs and tiny wells of ink to fill them; pens with stainless steel and titanium and gold nibs; paper with satisfying weight and a richness that even Dean’s rough and callused fingers could appreciate. All, bit by bit, made their way from Dean’s hands to Cas’s.

Sometimes Cas’s fingers would be stained, and Dean would wonder if he had spilt across a poem or a collection of words or nothing at all. Sometimes, taking out the garbage, the outline of an empty glass inkwell would press against the plastic and Dean would wonder what thousands of words and letters and sigils had emerged from the bottle, drop by drop.

They never spoke of it. It seemed a private thing, better suited to significant glances and nods than words. In Dean’s mind it became a physical representation of something else that passed between them, something just as difficult to capture with a framework of words and just as fragile, prone to collapsing if they tried.

It was early spring again when Dean laid his head upon his pillow, reaching under it to pull it closer, and his hand landed upon paper. Crisp, folded precisely, with a wax seal that cracked as Dean pulled the edges apart.

 

 

 

Dean’s eyes skimmed over the verse several times, unsure that it actually said what he thought it said. It could mean nearly anything, and yet with the surety of the next breath, he knew that the ink had finally captured some small mote of the ineffable.

It took Dean a very long time to find an appropriate reply, and as he hesitated outside Cas’s bedroom door one afternoon, he flipped open his own sheet of paper to read it once again, nervous that somehow the words he’d chosen had changed meaning.

 

  
It was bold and brash, but then so was he; he couldn’t pretend to the elegance or sophistication of Cas’s missive any more than he could fake the serenity of the fallen angel himself. The paper, the ballpoint pen -- Dean had no delusions to where he came from. He’d present himself honestly or not at all.

Cas’s room was dominated by the writing desk they’d moved from the library, covered with orderly stacks of papers and rows of inkwells and each of his prized pens in their boxes. The bookshelf next to it was filled to groaning with the leather folders of Cas’s work, and though curiosity burned bright beneath Dean’s ribs, he didn’t so much as take a step toward it.

Instead he cast his eyes about the room. Even in Cas’s absence there was a calm to it, a feeling opposite from Dean’s room in ways too incomprehensible to describe. Dean imagined he could feel his blood pressure dropping the longer he spent here, and it was almost with regret that he turned to the doorway after slipping the paper under Cas’s pillow.

The doorway where Cas was standing silently, watching Dean with a puzzled expression, head cocked ever so slightly to one side.

Dean was sure that his pounding heart echoed off the walls of the room as he clenched his jaw in surprise. “I was just…” he began, finishing with a gesture that said nothing at all before Cas stepped to the side and Dean took the opportunity to sidestep through the doorway and hurry down the hall, ears burning.

His own room felt oppressive, and Sam was in the library and would doubtless notice Dean’s heightened emotional state. With the vague notion of driving to town to put some miles between him and Cas, who had doubtless found the note by now and was probably reading it -- Dean swallowed at the thought and was now certain that they had been entirely the wrong words altogether -- Dean shrugged into a jacket and slipped out the door.

The leather seat was cold with the remnants of winter. Dean stabbed the keys into the ignition and took a moment to press his palms against his eyes, forcing calm into his chest. What was done was done.

He half-expected the tapping at the window, but it still made him jump. He kept his hands over his face as he listened to the passenger door open and a body slide into the seat. The car rocked slightly with the closing of the door, isolating them from the ambient noise of the outside.

Neither of them spoke. Dean could hear Cas breathing, deeply and evenly, and found himself unconsciously trying to match his breaths to the angel’s. By small measures he felt himself calming until he finally swallowed and lowered his hands. Almost afraid, Dean glanced over to see Cas steadily watching him, not expectantly, not bemusedly, but...softly.

Neither of them spoke. Dean didn’t want to be the first to speak. He’d hack this perfect silence to pieces, take a step too far and throw the balance they’d been maintaining for so long into complete disarray. He didn’t know what lay on either side of the knife’s edge on which they teetered and so both sides were terrifying in ways he couldn’t name.

Neither of them spoke, but Cas took a breath outside of his steady cadence, and Dean’s heart stepped sideways in his chest, and Cas reached out a hand to cover Dean’s, and it was warm and soft where Dean’s was cold and rough, and Dean swallowed and Cas’s eyes dropped and Dean took a breath of his own and Cas’s hand tightened and they both twisted and shifted and they faced each other --

Neither of them spoke. Not in words. Neither words on paper nor words in the air could say what they were saying right now, eyes closed tight, breathing ragged against each other’s lips, an outpouring of meaning that would render dry every inkwell the world had to offer.

It started to rain, quiet percussion on the roof of the car. They didn’t recline in each other’s arms, nor did Dean lay his head upon Cas’s shoulder. His hand rested on Cas’s knee, with Cas’s hand atop it, inkstained fingers intertwined with calloused, and they watched the silver rivulets of rain scroll down the windshield.

Neither of them spoke. Neither of them needed to. Words, after all, whether put to vellum or lined notebook paper, whether captured in finest pigments or cheap black, were pale echoes of the understanding that joined them now.

 


End file.
